Puyo Pop Fever

Did You Know?

• Edge ranked the game #64 on its list of 'The 100 Best Games To Play Today', stating that 'behind sugary visuals lies a game that revels in bringing about the ultimate chain reaction'.
• In Sega Superstars Tennis, a minigame based on Puyo Pop Fever has players clear Puyos by hitting the ball at them, with garbage Puyos that do not disappear when hit but can be cleared if attached colored Puyos are hit.

Gameplay

At its core, Puyo Pop Fever plays like a standard Puyo Puyo game. You manage a 6x12 grid, dropping pairs of colored blobs called puyo. Whenever you connect four or more of the same color, they pop. Any puyo sitting above the popped ones then fall, potentially creating new groups and triggering chain reactions. Each pop earns you points and sends nuisance, or trash, to your opponent. This trash is stored in a bar above your playfield, shown as symbols that warn you how much is coming. The trash puyo themselves are colorless; they don't pop in groups but only when a normal puyo next to them does. They only drop onto your board if you fail to make a chain, and they fall in batches of 30, which is one rock. If your board fills up—usually because you can't clear groups or you get buried in trash—you lose.

The big new twist is Fever mode. A meter in the center of the screen fills up when you offset, or counterattack, the trash your opponent sends. Each chain you make adds one notch to this meter. Once it's full, Fever mode kicks in. Your field clears, and a pre-designed chain puzzle drops onto an empty board. You have a limited time to find the trigger point—the one move that sets off a huge chain and attacks your opponent. After you trigger it, a bigger, more complex puzzle falls. This keeps happening until time runs out, at which point you return to your original field.

The Nintendo DS version supports 2 to 8 players, while other versions only allow 2 or 4. On the GameCube, Xbox, and PS2, the puyo are rendered as 3D models instead of the sprites used elsewhere. There is also an Endless mode where you can practice Fever mode, complete small tasks as they appear, or play a version of the original game. However, the grid size and all-clear rules are the same as in Fever mode, so it's not exactly classic.

Plot

A teacher at Primp Magic School, Ms. Accord, claims to have misplaced her Flying Cane, which functions like a magic wand, and offers a reward to whichever student retrieves it. Players take on the role of either student Amitie or Raffine, traveling through the Puyo Pop Fever world to locate the cane while encountering and battling various eccentric characters. Choosing Raffine increases the game's difficulty, changes the characters met, and determines which student ultimately discovers the wand. In Raffine's route near the conclusion, it becomes clear that Accord never actually lost her cane. Raffine intends to expose this secret along with Popoi's involvement, but her plan fails when Accord knocks her unconscious, erasing all memory of the cane incident. Raffine later wakes up near the school, where Amitie and friends congratulate her.

Release

The North American releases of Puyo Pop Fever were limited to the GameCube and Nintendo DS, with Atlus publishing the handheld version. Europe saw a wider launch, receiving those two ports alongside versions for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation Portable. A Dreamcast version, which would be the final first-party title for that console, came out exclusively in Japan on February 24, 2004, nearly three years after the system was discontinued. A planned North American Xbox release was cancelled. The game is backward compatible on the Xbox 360 and playable on Xbox One and Series X|S, though players have noted issues with region-locked copies and scarce physical discs. A soundtrack covering both Puyo Pop Fever and Puyo Puyo Fever 2, containing 45 tracks, arrived on July 26, 2007. Sega issued a remake for iOS and Android in Japan on February 1, 2009. In 2012, the game also appeared as a preloaded title on the Sony NWZ-E470 Walkman music player.

Sequel

Released in Japan in late 2005 for PlayStation 2, PSP, and Nintendo DS, Puyo Puyo Fever 2 never saw a release outside the country. It keeps the same visual style and core gameplay as its predecessor, while introducing a third main character named Sig. Each of the three protagonists has their own story mode, which offers three difficulty settings and allows the use of items. A new mode called Chu Panic plays like an endless mode, but a bar fills up each turn; once full, it causes pink nuisance Puyo to line up. Another new mode pits the player against a series of increasingly tough opponents. While Chu Panic was dropped from later Puyo Puyo games, the gauntlet-style mode stuck around. Critic Will M of Hardcore Gaming 101 felt the game was too similar to the original, arguing that the new features weren't substantial enough to set it apart.